Focus on Digital Drawing

Use Photoshop to Scribble, Sketch, Draw, and Clean Up

In this workshop Daniel Lieske, digital artist and author of acclaimed online graphic novel “The Wormworld Saga,” shares his techniques for digital drawing in Photoshop. You’ll follow along as Daniel creates a piece of artwork from scratch, beginning by creating a new document and creating custom brushes. He’ll explain every step in his creative process as the image evolves from a rough scribble, to a slightly more detailed sketch, to a finished product including a detailed background and a human character. Along the way you’ll learn about constructing perspective with the Path tool, stroking paths, cleaning up with the Eraser tool, and more.

In this chapter we'll get ready for our project by creating a new document and setting up perspective lines.

Preparing the Document

In this lesson we'll set up the document that we will use for our actual drawing. While doing so, we'll take some time to discuss what you need to keep in mind when choosing document size and resolution.

Drawing the Background

The pavement at the bottom of the image requires some special attention. In this lesson we'll create the pavement in a separate document, then bring it into our scene and transform it so the perspective matches.

About this lesson

Welcome to Focus on Digital Drawing

Your browser is not equipped with the required Flash player. Please follow the link for a free download.

This course covers the entire process of creating a digital drawing, from setting up a document and custom brushes to developing and fine-tuning the image itself.

Setup and ScribblesBefore we can start drawing, we need to make some preparations. In this chapter we’ll set up a new document and create a couple of pens, then make a rough scribble to serve as a guide for our work.

Preparing the DocumentIn this chapter we’ll get ready for our project by creating a new document and setting up perspective lines.

Drawing the BackgroundThis chapter is all about creating the background of our scene: the park bench, pavement, trees, and more.

Drawing the CharacterWith the background in place, now it’s time to liven up the scene by adding a human character. In this chapter we’ll first sketch out the character, then draw in the details.

Finishing TouchesIn this chapter we’ll finish the drawing by cleaning up some details and adding a little color.

The lessons are wrapped in a feature-rich interface that lets you jump to any topic and bookmark individual sections for later review. Full-Screen mode provides a hi-def, immersive experience, and Watch-and-Work mode shrinks the video into a small window so you can play the videos alongside your application. Also included are exercise files that give you an easy way to try out the techniques you learn.